Wednesday, July 5 @ 7:30 PMANNE OF THE INDIESDirected by Jacques Tourneur • 1951
“Captain Providence isn’t a man—he’s a woman!” Jean Peters stars as Captain Providence, a 17th century lady pirate who slaps the face of any sea dog with the impudence to call her “mademoiselle.” A disciple of Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez) and fearless captain of the marauding Sheba Queen, Anne Providence is essentially a proto-capitalist who has no time for love if it gets in the way of business. Her priorities change when the Sheba Queen intercepts a British freighter with a handsome but shifty French prisoner (Louis Jourdan) aboard—a fateful decision that may threaten her nautical supremacy. Anne of the Indies foregrounds the novelty of a female pirate, but never succumbs to the rituals of humiliation and pacification so often visited upon successful career women in Hollywood films of the 1940s and ’50s. Much of the credit goes to Peters for her spunky performance and to genre man of all trades Jacques Tourneur, who delivers a Technicolor swashbuckler bathed in scorching primaries. Anne of the Indies also boasts one of Herbert Marshall’s most affecting and melancholic late-career performances as Anne’s doctor and confidante. (KW)
82 min • 20th-Century Fox • 35mm from Fox Library ServicesFilm Stock: Kodak 2383 Lab: FotokemPreceded by: “Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor” (Dave Fleischer, 1936) – 16mm – 16 min